Three Weird Tricks To Ensure An Elf-blessed Time In Iceland

Get yourself a Northern Lights timetable: If you’ve ever had one of those days where everyone is going on and on about how beautiful the Aurora were last night, but you were fast asleep, or busy painting your nails and having a “me night,” then you should report to your nearest tourist information center and ask for an up-to-date Northern Lights timetable. This nifty pamphlet provides a pretty reliable rundown of all the scheduled shows and the best parts of town to catch them. It can be hard to keep tabs on the electropseudepigraphacomagnetic waves that bring about this phenomenon, so it’s nice that someone’s done that work for you.

Photo by York Underwood

Spend a day at the mall: On a Saturday afternoon, you can get a really excellent taste of Icelandic culture simply by walking up and down Laugavegur, but if you want to get the real inside scoop and brush shoulders with the movers and shakers of Reykjavík today, spend a day at one of the lovely malls that dot the outskirts and suburbs beyond 101. I hear Björk loves to play on the coin-operated Teletubby merry-go-round thing in Kringlan. Just sayin’.

Order off the secret menu at Bæjarins Beztu: Chances are you’ve been told that you’ll sound cool ordering “ein með öllu” at the country’s most famous hot dog stand, but you may have been misled. Not only are you using the nominative “ein” where you should properly use the accusative “eina,” but you’re also missing the lengthy secret menu that all Reykjavíkings know by heart. Try the lava-dog, a normal pylsa tucked in a bun lightly dusted with fermented dust from the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption. Or, if you’re feeling ambitious, there’s always the animal-style pylsa! If you ask nicely, they might give you the full run-down on the secret menu. Go crazy, buddy!